Rethink 'traffic congestion fees'

The Beijing environmental authorities recently issued an action plan to improve the city's air quality and asked relevant departments to discuss the possibility of collecting "traffic congestion fees" to reduce pollution, which has been questioned by many, says an article in Guangming Daily. Excerpts:

The Beijing environmental authorities have adopted a series of measures in recent years to ease traffic congestions but still failed to substantially improve the situation. The traffic congestion problem in Beijing is the result of highly concentrated public resources in the city and severely imbalanced distribution of its functional areas.